'Your WooWoo, Your Choice'

The Don't Buy List: Issue #53

Hello, dewy dust bunnies, and welcome to another edition of the The Don’t Buy List! I’m writing to you from my living room couch, where I’m watching reruns of CSI and telling the television to shut up every time that La Roche Posay commercial that says “90% of signs of aging are caused by the sun” comes on. It’s not wrong! (Or not totally wrong; most signs of “aging” are caused by environmental exposure, a category which includes sunlight.) It’s just like… if 90% of wrinkles and fine lines and volume loss are caused by the environment and not aging… why does the industry insist on calling them “signs of aging”??! Maybe because environmental exposure is an external and impersonal cause, and aging is an internal and very personal cause — and as any marketer will tell you, getting personal moves product? Gotta find a way to blame the body :)

Anyway! Onto the links…

In this issue: Salmon sperm as skincare! Denouncing body positivity! A face mist made from industrial emissions (and why I… don’t actually hate it??)! How beauty brands co-opt the language of bodily autonomy! The case against absolute freedom! Dupe culture! Anti-aging at 14! AI ponytails! And more!!